“Looks Like Reincarnation”: 50 Celebrities And Their Look-Alikes From The Past That May Need A Double Take

Nowadays, when we come across a stranger who looks nearly identical to us, at most we would laugh about it, snap a picture, and go on our own merry way. But hundreds of years ago, in folklore and ancient myths, seeing your doppelgänger was generally considered an omen of bad luck or even a sign of impending passing. 

The expression “doppelgänger” comes from German folklore, which translates to “double-goer”—an invisible spirit double of a living person. While the term itself was officially coined in the 18th century and later came to refer to uncanny lookalikes, myths of spirit doubles have persisted for thousands of years before that.

By some, doppelgängers were even seen as the evil twin who encouraged their human counterpart to do bad and unlawful things. Such a gothic trope would often be included in novels by famous writers such as Hans Christian Andersen, Edgar Allan Poe, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In fact, this trope continues to be popular nowadays, like in the TV series The Vampire Diaries.

Nowadays, we usually don’t have fear or think about bad omens when we face a person who resembles us in an uncanny way. What changed, you may be asking?

Well, the portrayal of doppelgängers started to evolve in the media and became less of a trope about an individual curse and more about a broader society’s struggle with identity. Plus, humankind improved its scientific understanding, and genetic similarities among unrelated people were discovered, explaining their uncanny resemblance.

“There are so many people in the world right now, that eventually, people that share a higher number of [genetic] variants are expected,” a molecular geneticist, Manel Esteller, explained.

Further investigation by Nancy Segal, a professor of psychology, also found that even though doppelgängers share genetic similarities, they don’t share personality traits.

“These unrelated lookalikes were very, very different,” she said. But they could have a similar manner of walking and even addictions, as the length of bones and addictive personality traits can be encoded in our genes.

For example, aTimothée Chalamet lookalike might have a similar walk and voice to him but wouldn’t necessarily have the same charisma and talent. “A lot of these people are going to be disappointed, because just looking like someone does not mean that you're going to be alike,” Segal said.

All this doppelgänger exploration has taken us from fear to pure amusement. Just last year, lookalike competitions took over the internet, with Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal, Harry Styles, and Glen Powell twins flooding the streets of cities all over England and America.

British sociologist and celebrity cultural critic Ellis Cashmore believes these contests have spread like fire because our current society is defined by the idea that you can potentially do anything and be anything you want to be, which causes excitement.

“What (the audience) is looking at is a transition in process,” he said. “They know this isn’t really Harry Styles on stage, but if someone who looks so much like him, could even be him, you’re giving someone an indication of just how malleable and changeable we are as human beings. Humanity isn’t fixed.”